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Added on: 19/1/2011 15:19
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    Midweek Anime News Roundup

    Manga Twits Ahoy

    Making sense of tweets and twhoo's is beyond me at the best of times, but fortunately there are people around who can hack into the Pentagon, blindfold and with a smartphone, who understand all this modern nonsense, and have translated such things into normal speak for a decrepit like me. In other words Manga have been announcing stuff again.

    5 Centimeters per Second has a release date. Well it's had several release dates, but licensing issues and a non-existent Blu-ray release have held things up. This week it was noticed that Manga's PR company have a revised date for the DVD, and this time it looks pretty certain that 14th March 2011 is the day to mark in your diary.

    They've also been mentioning that Manga Entertainment and UNIQLO have teamed up to bring some Naruto merchandise to the UK, and pretty soon 32 styles of Naruto themed T-Shirt will be yours to have for £12.99 apiece from UNIQLO stores and online.

    As for Manga's Twitter activity, they have three licences to crow about…

    The most unsurprising of the lot are the Eden of the East feature films. They've disregarded the first film (which is a re-editing of the series), and have gone for the second and the third that continue and conclude the story. The King of Eden will be out in June this year, while Paradise Lost will be released in November, and both come on DVD and Blu-ray.

    The most unexpected licence is that for Fairy Tail, a magical action series that is currently airing on Crunchyroll. You probably missed it, as episodes are taken down 30 days after airing, so unless you started it with episode 1, you'll have missed most of the series by now. It's up to the mid-seventies in episode count by the way. The curious thing is that it hasn't yet been announced by any US distributor, which either means that Manga will test the waters with a sub only release (unlikely), or they are going to commission a dub (unlikelier), or as they did with Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood last year, they've jumped the gun on the US announcement, and you can expect a statement on Region 1 Fairy Tail in the coming months from either Viz, Funimation or Sentai. Manga hope to release the first volume by the end of the year.

    A show that I had down as a shoe-in for a Manga title when I first saw it a couple of years ago is Shikabane Hime a.k.a. Corpse Princess (which will fit in neatly with their High School Of The Dead summer). It's a supernatural action show with the undead seeking redemption, fighting the undead that are just mean and evil. It's taken its time, but Manga have finally announced that they have the licence for Shikabane Hime Aka. Shikabane Hime was a show released in two halves, two series, although broadcast in order with no break, Shikabane Hime Aka, and Kuro. In the US, Funimation released both halves on the same day, but for some bizarre reason, Manga Entertainment have held back on announcing that they have the second series as well. It could be a wait and see attitude on the sales of the first half, it could be a marketing ploy to heighten the anticipation, but the end result is a bunch of nervous anime fans, fans that are quick off the mark these days to import. Anyway, Season 1 of Shikabane Hime, Corpse Princess, is due in May.

    Beez Twits Ahem

    Speaking of nervous anime fans…

    Beez were tweeting last week, and if Manga provided the good twits, it was Beez that offered the bad twits. They've been hit by an unfortunate case of unforeseen circumstances. It means that some of their flagship releases are now subject to significant delay.

    The much anticipated UK release of Outlaw Star has been pushed back to late April, while Gundam 00 Season 2 will now come out in March.

    More distressingly, their big experiment, the sub only release of Durarara!! has also fallen victim to the delay, with volume 2 now coming out at the end of March, and volume 3 slipping to the end of May. The big deal about Durarara!! was that Beez had gained ground on the US release by going sub only, and delivering the title significantly ahead of Aniplex in the US, where a dub is being prepared. The delays to the UK discs now mean that they will be released practically simultaneously with the US discs.

    Beez intend to offer a dub upgrade programme further down the line, but in my opinion, at this juncture they would be better served in releasing volumes 2 and 3 as dub and sub, as by that point the materials will be available, and limiting the upgrade programme to volume 1 alone, as well as re-releasing it at that time in a hybrid format.

    News gleaned from Twitter, Anime UK News, UK Anime.Net, and other places.

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